2017 Nova Scotia election (May 30)

[lilTommy]

Mainstreet: http://www.mainstreetresearch.ca/liberals-lead-campaign-begins/

Province wide Decided/Leaning:
Liberal - 42%
PC - 29%
NDP - 25%

HRM
Liberal - 39%
NDP - 31%
PC - 29%

[lilTommy]

Race is tightning

Liberal: 40%
Tory: 32%
NDP: 25%

Already changed too!

Liberal: 37% (-3)
Tory: 32% (-)
NDP: 27% (+2)

[lilTommy]

Halifax Armdale
This riding is an almost perfectly even split of middle class comfort and lower class poverty. Liberal Lena Diab won last time and has been prominent as Justice Minister. The NDP haven't generated much momentum yet, I think Diab will win it again.
Lean Liberal

Don't be too sure about that. The NDP is running David Wheeler the former Dean of Management at Dalhousie who is widely regarded as a "star candidate"...also if polls now have the NDP at 27% province-wide, i suspect that 27% is much more concentrated in halifax than in the 2013 election and if that is the case this seat would have to be considered relatively "low hanging fruit" for a resurgent NDP

If we look at the last Mainstreet:

HRM
Liberal - 39%
NDP - 31%
PC - 29%

That was with the NDP at 25% province wide, Is it more likely that the NDP is gaining ground in HRM or elsewhere? at 27% The margin with the Liberals would be smaller (if not tied) in HRm and/or they are above 20% in the rest of the province.

[lilTommy]

Prediction: the Liberals form government again, with the Tories as official opposition. The NDP is almost level with the Tories on raw votes, but FPTP screws them over and they end up with like four seats.

The NDP's 26% in this election (if that's what they end up with) would almost certainly be much more concentrated than the 26% they received in the last election.  There are people here who know Nova Scotia better than I do, but I'd guess the NDP support will be mostly concentrated in Central Halifax, Dartmouth/Cole Harbour and maybe Pictou County/Central Nova.

That sounds right, polling needs to be specific to HRM and the rest, because the last poll listed here which had the HRM polled had the NDP over 30% and the Liberals at 39%... but if you compare that with the 2013 HRM results which were NDP 31% Liberals 48%, Liberals are going to lose seats. The PCs vote is up 10 points which will swing a handful of seats to the NDP, even the PCs could steal 1 or 2 if their vote is concentrated enough.

[lilTommy]

Is there a significant number of Francophones in NS ? Do they call it Nova Scotia or Nouvelle-Écosse ? And do they tend to vote in some discernible pattern ?

They would be called Acadian's, officially looks like there are about 11000 of them, mostly living in Antigonish, Digby and Yarmouth counties. Only about 4% of NS is French mother tongue.
In Digby - French is 30% Yarmouth 20%
Liberal, they vote LIBERAL... someone who lives there can explain more, but from what i can see Digby in particular is very strongly liberal.

[lilTommy]

While the NDP won the same number of seats from 2013, 7, it's a big shift in where those are:
Losing Queens-Shelboure, Chester-St. Margarets and Sydney-Whitney Pier (they lost during the by-election anyway)
But gained in HRM; Halifax-Chebucto, Dartmouth North and Dartmouth South (by-election gain)
Also, in-polling had them doing much better then the 21% they ended up with.